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HON. EOSCOE COjSKLIInGt 



of 1st e "w "5t o r. ik , 
Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York, July 23, 1872. 



99f~ 



PKoTB— On account of the gr$ai length of SeBator Coftkling's sgeecn ft has been necessary to omit 
portions chiefly relating to New York St ite matters, nationa) fiuauces, and extracts from the New Yor« 
Tribune a large part of which has beeu published in other documents. j 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 
men : Your greeting of me to-hi^ht and the 
warmth of your rvception quite oppress me. 
I have not, words fitly to express my feel- 
ings. It has been my privilege lor twenty 
years, sometimes from this platform, to ad- 
dress my neighbors upon political issues, 
and too touch ardor and too mueh of the 
partisan have always been among my many 
faults. Yet no canvass has ever stirred me 
like this. [Cheers.] No election has ever 
bo appealed to my sense of fair play, no can- 
vass has ever involved so much of injustice, 
malice and foul play, none has ever so thor- 
oughly tested the common sense and gener- 
osity of the American people. [Cheers.] 

INJUSTICE HEAPED ON THE PRESIDENT. 

Eleven years' service in Congress has made 
me a close observer of four Presidents and 
of many public men; and if among them 
all there is one, living or dead, who never 
knowingly failed in his duty, that one is 
Ulysses S. Graut. If there has been a high 
official ever ready to admit and correct an 
error— if there has been one who did wisely, 
firmly, and well the things giveu him in 
charge, that one is the soldiw in war and the 
quiet patriot in peace, who has been named 
again by every' township in forty-six Scales 
find Territories for the. great trust he now 
holds. Yet this man, honest, brave, and 
modest, and proved by his transcendent 
deeds to be endowed with genius, common 
tense, and moral qi-dities adequate to the 
greatest affairs; tnis mau who saved his 
country, who snatched our nationality and 
our cause from despair, and bore tnem on 
his shield through the flame of battle, in 
which, but for him, they would have per- 
ished; this man, under whose administra- 
tion our country has flourished as uo 
one dared predict; this man, to whom a 
nation's gratitude and benediction are 
due, is made the mark for ribald 
•jives aud odious groundless slanders. Why 
is all this? Simply because ha stands in th« 
way of tin; greed and ambition of politicians 
and schemers. Many honest, men join in the 
«ry, or hear it without indiguatmu. They 



are. deceived by the cloud of calumny -which 
darkens tlv sky; but the inventors are men 
distempered with griefs, or else the sordid 
and the vile, who follow politics as the shark 
follows the ship. A war of mud and missiles 
has been waged for months. The President, 
bis family, and all nearly associated with 
him, have' been bespattered, and truth and 
decency have been driven far away/Every 
thief and cormorant and drone who has 
been put out— every baffled mouser for place 
and plunder— every mau with a grievance or 
a' grudge— all who have something to make 
by a change, seem to wag an unbridled tongue 
or to drive a foul pen. 

WHERE THE OPPOSITION HAS BLUNDERED. 

The American people may misjudge a po- 
litical question, they may b'e deceived, but) 
with the truth before them, they will never 
be unjust, ami never untrue upon a question 
of right and wrong. Ingratitude has been 
charged Upon Republics, and just there is -the 
point where the angry enemies of the Presi- 
dent have blundered.' Had the cool veterans 
of the Democracy formed or selected the is- 
sues to be presented, they would have been 
wise enough to so frame them that the .peo- 
ple could decide in their favor without fixing 
a stigma upon General Grant, and without 
blasting his name or doing him wrong. I5u* 
the Democratic statesmen, the leaders in a 
hundred lights, have been mere lookers-on* 
leadership has b en assumed by Republican 
renegades, and "out" men so eaten u|> with 
envy, or so maddened with the :oss or refusal 
of place and patronage, that nothing would 
satisfy them short of a rancorous, revengeful, 
personal raid. When a man turns Turk lie 
spits on the Cross, and when w.de-tnroaied 
Ultra-Republicans clandestinely trade with 
the enemy, and then turn open traitors to 
their party, they become the meanest and 
fiercest opponents, justas a Yankee slave 
overseer Horn N'ew England was always 
more brutal than those boru in the South 
When men whose vanity was hurt, and. 
others gnawed by ambition and cupidity, 
went uut to ruin the party which they could 




ETt 

C~|43 



not rule, madness drove them on. They had 
bo polar star, ex'r.ept hatred of Grant and 
his supporters. These lusty patriots, who 
mod- stiy assumed the name of "Reformers," 
would not have an ordinary Presidential 
canvass for the fair discussion of political 
questions; such a proceeding would have 
b\-n too tame and insipid for them. Their 
stomaehsci aved stronger, more game-flavored 
meat; hard names must be called-, vengeance 
must'ba satisfied; the President must be po- 
litically court-martialed or dragged before a 
national assize to be. tried as a malefactor. 

In the Senate the Democrats proper kept- 
silent or talked about business; I give them 
credit for wasting but little rime; but half the 
last session, eight months in length, was 
worn out and wasted by slanderous elec- 
tioneering harangues aimed at the Adminis- 
tration and its friends by men badly in need 
of being reformed themselves. These self- 
righteous and noisy oracles pitched the key 
in%irhich the anti-Grant chorus was to be 
sung, and hence comes the absence of politi- 
cal questions and the presence of personal 
and scandalous issues. The public journals 
and newspaper correspondence from Wash- 
ington controlled bv these "Liberal*"— liberal 
in nothing so much as in defaming honest 
men and praising aud helping themselves— 
took hue from the heart-burnings.distempers, 
and ambitions which set them on. "Any- 
thing to beat Giant" was the motto, and it 
gratified their heat and spite toassail the 
President personally, and to heap malignant 
charges upon him; thus his character, his in- 
tegrity, his standing as a man have been put 
in issue, and the people are compelled to pass 
upon his guilt or innocence. The case has 
been so put that the question is not merely 
whether Grant shall be President, but whether 
Gr.ant shall be pronounced by the nation a 
fool, a knave, an impostor, an enemy of his 
country. Mad issues been taken upon public 
measures; had public questions been raised, 
whether new questions or those which have 
divided parlies heretofore, a popular verdict 
would Jiave been a verdict only between 
parties *nd policies and principles. Such a 
verdict would have rested upon public 
grounds, personal and disparaging to no one. 
In that case General Grant could not com- 
plain. If the political views he represents 
are not those of a majority there is no injus- 
tice and no reflection upon any one in so sa-y- 
iug and so voting. But when the President 
is arraigned for" iguorauce, dishonesty, and 
viae, and for nothing else, the case is different. 
What is the arraignment? What political 
position held by the Republican party or its 
candidates does the "any-thiug-to-beat- 
Grant" coalition deny? Will any one tell 
me? Read the manifesto put forth at Cin- 
cinnati, which Mr. Greeley did over in im- 
proved words, as he thought, in his letter of 
acceptance. Read the address lately pub- 
lished by .Mr. Greeley aud his committee, so- 
liciting the votes of the people of this State. 
These papers, in so far as, they refer to the 
Administration, are a gross personal libel 
fcpon the President, and they are nothing 
more. 



THE CINCINNATI PLATFORM ANALYZED. 

The tariff resolution at Cincinnati is a 
mere juggle — a shallow evasion, by which no 
one of common intelligence has a tight to be 
cheated. 

The resolution about Congress and "cen- 
tralism," if they mean anything, refer to 
the exercise of powers by Congress every one 
of which Mr. Greeley approved aud de- 
manded in his usual violent and unmeasured 
language. 

The amnesty resolution is spent, because a 
general amnesty bill was passed weeks ago. 
Every rebel votes, and every relvl may hold 
office now, except JVfferson Dayis and less 
than tw<» hundred others, who still spurn for- 
giveness. 

Where, then, is the political issue the peo- 
ple are to pass upon? It cannot be "evil 
service reform," unless dishonesty is imputed 
to '-he President. lie is for civil .service re- 
form, lie. recommended it and inaugurated it, 
and the Philadelphia Conventioa specially 
declared for it. There can-be no issue of that 
kind, except by pretending that Grunt is a 
hypocrite 4 , and that Greeley is not; and neither 
of these things would be easy to prove. Mr. 
Greeley has plainly and repeatedly avowed, 
in public and in private, that his political ac- 
tion hinges on patronage and spoils; without 
stopping to prove this now, 1 will recur to it 
hereafter. 

The coalition presents nothing of sub- 
stance, on which parties or individuals are 
divided in principle, but only assaults on thy 
President. 

This is nothing more or less than a chal- 
lenge of Comparison between the candid ites. 

The issue is narrowed to a single inquiry. 
Which is person illy the safest, fittest man for 
the Presidency? 

DEMOCRACY GIVES UP— WHAT IS ASKED O? 
DEMOCR ATS. 

Some things, however, are said and done 
effectually by the platform and nomination 
of our opponents. They blot, out and re- 
nounce the time-honored creed of the Demo- 
cratic party. That cn-ed is laid aside and its 
vital points repudiated. 

It is fairly admitted that Democratic doc- 
trines and Democratic candidates can not 
stand before the judgment of the country. 

The Democracy confesses its defeat upon 
the great issues of the century, and confesses 
its error also. Equality of race ; emancipa- 
tion of slaves; the ballot for the blacks; a 
protective tarid; exemption of Government 
bonds fr<*m taxation; paving bonds in c »in. 
Upon these and other things the Democracy 
at last confesses itself not only beaten but 
wrong, and the Republican party victorious 
and right. Stopping here, the homage paid 
to the Republican party would be great in- 
deed, but we find greater-tribute and homage 
still. 

Not only are the old grounds of difference 
given up, hut no new ones can be found. 
What measure or doctrine of the '.'epuhhcaa 
party, again I ask, have our opponents ven- 
tured to attack? 

The Republicai paTty has been in powoi 



for years, responsible for all legislation in 
the greatest era of the nation, and now its 

ri life long rival and adversary at last throws 
. up the sponge, not daring to join issue upou 

- • one political question. 
. Even the Knklux and election bills are not 

\v matters in difference, for Mr. Greeley sup- 
ported them both with all his virulent vocab- 
ulary. Mv own part in preparing and press- 
ing the election law was, I remember, the 
occasion of my being praised in the Trilnme. 
The only instance of alleged "centralism" 
being measures to which Sir. Greeley stands 
fully committed, the candidate and the plat- 
form together leave not a shred of anything 
Democratic. As if to abjure the last vestige, 
or Democracy and wipe out its very mem- 
ory, these vaulting managers have selected 
as their figure-head a professed ultra Repub- 
lican, formerly an ultra Whig, an I they ask 
honest Democrats to vote for him, against a 
man horn and b-.ed a Democrat, who never 
ac'ed with the Republican party till after the 
war had raised new issues, which Democrats 
divided. Democrats are asked to vote for 
that Republican who "out-Heroded Herod" 
always in politics and abuse, and who did 
more than any other man in the North to 
encourage secession and bring on the war. 
A Republican, coming from the Whig party 
with such a record, now asks # the votes of 
Democrats. 

"WHY SHOULD DEMOCRATS VOTE FOR GREE- 
LEY? 

Upon what ground will patriotic Democrats 
prefer Greeley to Grant? They must prefer 
Greeley because they disapprove Grant per- 
sonally, or else because they disapprove some 
political doctrine he represents. 

Are Democrats for repudiating the debt? 
Are they for agitating or annulling the thir- 
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amend- 
ments of the Constitution? Would they re- 
establish ! l/.very? Would they pay the rebel 
war debt, or pensions to rebel soldiers, or 
rebel war claims? Would they inflate the 
currency again and flood the country with 
paper money? Are Democrats against re- 
ducing taxes aud exnenses? Are Democrats 
en iio^ed to peace with all nations and stable 
government at korae?e These questions are 
not asked to impugn the position of any man, 
bur. for the opposite reason. 

Genera! Grant being tried and true in all 
these things, why should any Union man, or 
Conservative man, or business man, or pa- 
triot, vote against him, even if his competitor 
was a safe and fit man for President? Plainly 
there can be no reason, unless Grant is un- 
wortiiy of confidence or respect, and de- 
serves to be found guilty of the crimes aud 
vices alleged against him. To judge this 
question we muse examine his history and 
lay bare his lile. " The tree is known by its 
fruit." the carpenter by his chips, the man 
by his deeds. 

GRANT'S EDUCATION. 

Grant can not b .-• illiterate, or, as a Greeley 
Grak'.r told an audience the other day, "igno- 
rant (it what sehool'oovs know." 

He was txiu-eai-sd at West Point, aud who- 



ever graduates in that exacting school must 
have an education such as few Americans 
receive. Mental culture is not atl we find in 
Grant at West Point.- His letters- written 
then stamp him with character enough by it- 
self to refute the worn and soiled scandal 
which now offends the nostrils of the nation. 

From West Point he went to act a subordi- 
nate part in the Mexican war. He acted it 
bravely, modestly, and well. The Mexican 
war be'ing over, his pay in the regular army 
would have gone on, and he might have lived 
in peace and idleness at the public cost, but, 
unwilling to be a drone, he became a tanner. 

THE "TANNER OF GALENA. "--WHAT HE 
TANNED. 

Mr. Sumner withers him by reminding us 
that "he tanned hides at Galena for afevr 
hundred dollars a year." He did not mas- 
querade as a wood-chopper; he did not figure 
in pictorials as a farmer; he did not so round 
telling "what he knew about" anything that 
he didn't understand himself; he minded his 
own business, and let other people's business 
alone; but he worked with his hands as a 
hewer of wood, which he sold in the market, 
and wrought out a living for his family and 
himself. 

From the breaking out of the rebellion, his 
career is a "thrice told tale" — the world 
knows it by heart. When the flag sank at 
Sumter, he did not wait to be called. With- 
out commission, command, uniform or should- 
er-straps, he started for the field, and grasp- 
ing the Stars and Stripes, and carried theak 
through a blaze of victories such as no mort™ 
before him had won. 

' While : Senators who now hawk at .hiai 
were lolling for a fourth term ou cushions, 
and eviscerating encyclopedias, books of 
quotations, and classical dictionaries, the 
tanner of Galena swept rebellion from the 
valley of- the Mississippi, and the father of 
waters went uu vexed to the sea,* 

Lincoln and Stanton, who reposed un- 
measured confidence iu him, called him at 
once from the victorious fields of the West 
to the department of the Potoiuae, that Gol- 
gotha, where army after army, the very 
flower of the nation, had melted away. He 
came to the wilderness of Virginia, when 
that traitorous Commonwealth had become 
the rendezvous of the allied armies of rebel- 
lion, and when the rebel chiefs were boast- 
ing that iu the fastnesses of the Blue Ridgs 
they could defy the world in arms. He 
marched from Washington, and he measured 
no backward step until he set his foot upon 
the shattered fragments of the greatest 
military power an invading army ever over- 
threw. He solved the problem which had 
baffled all others, and preserved a nationality 
after the world thought it gone down. 

How stood he then? The nation leaned 
and reposed upou him, and blessed him. 
Both hemispheres gazed at him as the prod- 
igy and wonder of the age. 

The Democrats sought his consent to nomi- 
nate him for the Presidency without Dlalf-orm 
or pledge, but he declined. His integrity 
taughitfhiuj that when a party chooses a can- 



did:* to from the other side somebody is to be 
cheated; and by ( Grant's consent, n» one ever 
was or ever will be -cheated. 

But the Democratic managers adored 1dm, 
and saw him only resplendent with great- 
cess and with virtues. Fie. was not unfit, for 
President then; he was the fittest of all his 
countrymen; fie did not become unfit until 
Shr.ee years' experience had ripened and en- 
larged his knowledge, lie did not become 
unfit while the patronage' held ou-t, and vyhile 
unclean fingers Were allowed to fumble it. 

WHlT THE NEW YORK "WORLD" SAID. 

"Apply to General Grant what test you 
will; m 'asure him by the magnitude of the 
obstacles be has surrounded, by the value of 
the DO=.itions he has gained, by the fame of 
the antagonist over whom he has triumphed, 
by the. achievements of his most illustrious 
co-workers, by the sureness with which he 
directs his indomitable energy to the vital 
coint which is the key of a vast field of op- 
eration, or by that supreme test of consum- 
mate ability, the absolute completeness of his 
results, aud he vindicates his claim to stand 
next alter Napoleon and Wellington among 
the great soldiers of this country, if not on 
a ievel with the latter." 

WHAT HORACE GREELEY SAID. 



"Grant and his policy deserved the very 
highest credit. 

"•The people of the United States know 
General Grant — have known all about him 
e'$ce I) Hudson and Vi -tcsburg; they do not 
ino Wilis slanderers, and do not care to know 

them. , . - r, 

"While asserting the right of every Re- 
publican to his lintrammeled choice of a can- 
didate for next President until a nomination 
is made, I venture to Suggest that General 
Grant will be far better qualified for that 
momentous trust in 1872 than he was in 1868. 
■« We are led by him who first taught our 
armies to conquer in the West, and subse- 
quently in the East also. Richmond would 
not come to ns until we sent Grant after it, 
and then it had to come, lie has never yet 
been defeated, and never will be. He will be 
as great and successful on the field of politics 
as On that of arms. 

"Yes^ General Grant has failed to gratify 
some eager aspirations and has thereby in- 
curred some intense hatreds. These do not 
and will not fail; and his Administration «dll 
prove at least equally vital. We shall hear 
lamentation after lamentation over his fail- 
ures from those whose wish is father to the 
thought; but the American people let them 
pass unheeded. Their strong arm bore him 
triumphantly through the war and into the 
Whits 'douse, and they still uphold and sus- 
tain him; and they never failed and never 
will." 

In September, 1871, Mr. Greeley wrote, and 
Bent to die Republican State Convention tor 
adoption, these resolutions: 

"II. In this alarming crisis in city and State 
affairs, the Republican party refers all good 
citizens to its record, as their warrant for 



giving it their fullest crmfidencA and Support 
in this campaign, now formally opening, of 
the honest mene against the thieves; 

"It abolished slavery. 

"It led in the suppression of the rebellion. 

"It preserved and enlarged the Union. 

"It promptly reduced the enormous forces 
thus required for a peace footing. 

"It has reduced the debt over two hundred 
and fifty milliwjw *>f dollars /in the last three 
years. 

"It has simultaneously reduced public tax- 
ation over two hundred and fiity millions of 
dollars per annum. 

"It has preserved peace on the border. 

"It has won a friendly adjustment of the 
threatening troubles with Great Britain. 

"III. For its conspicuous share, in this be- 
neficent record wa indorse the National Repub- 
lican Ad a< in ist ration." 

These resolutions were written only a little 
while ago, and all the slanders to this day 
invented against the President had long been 
current then. 

"GIFT-TAKING." 

But let us go back a moment to Grant before 
he seriously thought of being President, and 
when he was only the idol of the nation. 
Returning from the field, covered with glory, 
but poor in money, the affluent, whose for- 
tunes he had saved, met him with munificent 
offerings. In this they followed the customs 
of an ancient anil modem times. 

T he austere re puiTiics of antiquity, enriched 
and ennobled their heroes returning from 
victory. England, with an unwritten con- 
stitution and an omnipotent Parliament, 
which a lawyer once said "could do anything 
but make a man a woman," has enriched her 
generals both by acts of Parliament and by 
voluntary subscriptions. 

In the 'United States the Constitution does 
not permit Congress to act in such in itters; 
here they rest wholly m the voluntary action 
of individuals, and that public presentations 
to heroes involved turpitude in givers or re- 
cipients has been first found out by the spu- 
rious reformers and libelers now clamoring 
for notice. 

Wellington received from his Government 
and his neighbors more than §3,000,000. 
British citizens of Calcutta ra-de him pres- 
ents, the officers of the army gave him 
$10,000, the House of, Commons voted him 
$1,000,01)0, and a mansion and estate were 
purchased for him by subscription at, a eost 
of $1,300,000. Besides this, he was three 
times ennobled, twice by England and once 
by Spain. 

Oliver Cromwell, for deeds done in civil 
war, received $32,500 a year in gifts. M irl- 
borough was given a stately palace and a 
splendid fortune. Nelson and his family 
were ennobled, and received $75,000. Jew- 
els and money were given to Fairfax for ser- 
vices in civd war. 

The generals and admirals of England and 
France have generally been recipients of 
great pecuniary benefits. In England and 
elsewhere the customs of presents to pubiio 
men has gono beyond the army and the na.Yj. 



Richard Cobden, a civilian, in token of po- 
litical service only, was given by subscrip- 
tiou $350,000. John Bright lias j ust received 
costly g Its. 

America, younger and poorer, with few 
wars to breed heroes, has been less lavish than 
older nations; but Americans have not been 
stingy. General McClellau, perhaps, begins 
the list of largely-rewarded Generals. His 
active service ended before the war was over, 
and his Democratic admirers, prior to nomi- 
nating him lor the Presidency,, presented him 
a costly house and a large purse, amounting 
in all to a hundred thousand dollars. 

To Sherman, Sheridan, Farragut, atid 
Grant, large sums were given. To Stanton's 
fauVily, and to Rawlins', were given more 
than a hundred thousand each. Were these 
things dishonorable? Was it wrong for Gen- 
eral Graot to accept such gifts? The charge 
is an insult to the nition who witnessed and 
applauded the proceeding; it is an imputation 
anon those who gave, as much as upon him 
who received. It can not have been dishon- 
orable or improper for him to accept a gift, 
without it being dishonorable and improper to 
offer it. 

How must the cant and snivel we hear 
seem to the people of Germany just now? 
Bismarck, though Chancellor and Prime 
Minister, has jtrst received as a gift, in to- 
ken of his services in the recent war,. a mag- 
nificent landed estate, worth more than was 
given to all our g»-nera!s; and Bismarck, in 
like, token, has been made a prince. General 
Von Moltte. for his services in the German- 
Franco war, has been given $300,000; and 
Germany has set apart, from the French in- 
demnity fund, four million dollars, to lie dis- 
tributed in gift-; to her heroes. Do you be- 
lieve any German, or any man with a Ger- 
man h<*art in his bosom, will ever 03 mean 
enough to throw these gifts in the face of 
those who earned and accepted them? Yet 
git t-t. ikrng, forsooth, is paraded by political 
Pharisees. The charge that Grant accepted 
any gift after he became President, or after 
he was nominated, is wholly false. He has 
accented nothing of value since his first nom- 
ination — not even a carriage and horses — 
although Lincoln, and Buchanan, and 
Pierce, wild Taylor, and other Presidents, 
did accept carriages and horses after their 
election. 

"GIFT-BEARING GREEKS." 

But it is said that men who subscribed to 
gifts have been appointed to office, and the 
insinuation is lhat they were appointed be- 
cause they subscribed to gifts. 

The fact that hundreds who gave have 
never been appointed to anything would of 
itself seem to disprove the charge, that official 
patronage has been used to rep ty gilts. 
Only three — or at most, four — contributors 
to the funds raised for General Grant have 
ever been offered appointments, and ii would 
seem far-fetched to explain the selection of 
three lor a reason applying to more than 
three hundred who were never selected at 
all. Bat the facts answer the charge. 

Mil A T BTfcWAKT AND Mil. liOlilE. 

A. T, Stewart bUOoOfibed to toe Grant 



fund, so did every leading man in the city of 

New York who then supported the war and 
the Republican partv. No man on Manhat- 
tan Island who would have been thought of 
for the Cabinet refused to subscribe. A man 
of wealth and prominence belonging to .thu 
Union party at that time, who had^refused 
to shui\' in an offering to a Union general, 
would have been as mean and as marked as 
a member of a church who should refuse to 
pay his part to the minister. The call was 
general, and for the wealthy who had sup- 
ported the war to give was a matter of course. 
When General Graut became President, had 
he named for his Cabinet E. D. Morgan, 
George Opdvke, Jackson S. Schultz, William 
E. Dodge. Henry Clews, or any other lead- 
ing merchant or banker who supported him, 
it would have turned out that he too was a 
"gift- bearing Greiik." 

The same thing is true of Mr. BorD, of 
Philadelphia, the late Secretary of the Navy. 
These Cabinet Ministers were selected tor 
two reasons: First, their supposed fitness; 
and second, because they were not "politi- 
cians." Mr. Stewart's success and master- 
ship of the details of a varied and immenss 
business convinced th« President that he 
might render great service as Secretary of th« 
Tr< as my. 

Mr. Borie, a retired merchant aud importer 
and shipper and shipowner, was believad to 
have large experience and knowledge appli- 
cable to the Navy Department. 

The facts by themselves might not have 
caused these two selections, because other 
men might have been found qualified, and at 
the same time known iu political affairs. 

THE NEW YORK " TRIBUNE" AT THE BOTTOM 
OP IT. 

The New York Tribune, and the news- 
papers which followed it, or chimed in with 
it, had more to do than all else with briugiae 
about the nomination of Mr. Stewart ana 
Mr. Borie, and of others uukuown in public 
affairs. 

T»e Tribune had vociferated against " poli- 
ticians," it had conjured the President to 
avoid "politicians," and had proclaimed 
again and again that the country had a right 
to expect of General Grant that " politicians" 
would uot be put in high places, but that 
new men would be brought iu. Listening to 
this hollow bluster, echoed in many public 
journals, the President was misled as to the 
popular judgment. 

His own wisdom taught him that if yoa 
want a lawyer you should select a man who 
has proved himself a lawyer; that if you 
want a doctor, you had better take one 
who has beeu tried, and so if you want an 
agent to manage public affairs, you bad bet- 
ter take a man experienced in such affairs. 
But Mr. Greeley insisted that a Cabinet' 
should he chosen upon the principleon which 
he is trying to be President, viz: passing oyer 
all the men whom you know to be tit, and 
Hiking a man at a venture with no reason to 
believe hfea tit. Indeed, Mr. Greeley once 
teldi he President that. in his opinion, offices 

should never be giv i\ Co Mm e .vli y e i • d 

- take care of themselves; Out should I I 



for s those who couldn't make a living in any 
other way. Much has been said about Presi- 



dent Grant's choice of his Cabinet, but those 
who know his inside history know that the 
very men who are now hounding the Presi- 
dent warmly approved of the persons named, 
especially of Mr. Stewart. 

THE PRESIDENT'S RICHES. 

The "Liberal" idea of deceucy and manly 
war, forces me to speak of another thing, 
which will grate upon our ears. The politi- 
cal scavengers pretend that the President 
has grown rich, as President, by illicit gain, 
and they parade his property by millions. 
We have fallen on sorry times, when the 
Chief Magistrate of the country, with a fame 
so great and pure, must givn an account of 
his private property in answer to electioneer- 
igg falsehoods. The President would dis- 
dain to do it; 1 have no authority to do it; I 
do not assume to do it on his behalf; but on 
behalf of the party and the cause he repre- 
sents I venture to state the facts. 

At Galena, where be "tanned hides," he 
owned a house, and during the war .he in- 
vested the savings from his pay in some lots 
in Chicago, and in some shares of street 
railway stock. 

Mrs. Grant inherited her share of her 
father's farm in Missouri, and they bought 
out the other heirs with a portion of the I 
hundred thousand dollars presented by citi- 
zens of New York. This one hundred thou- 
sand dollars also paid for a house in Wash- 
ington, which was subsequently sold to Gen- 
eral Sherman, and a cottage and grrmiids 
were bought at Long Branch, after the Wash- 
ington house was sold. The people of Phila- 
delphia presented a house, which rents ftw 
about two thousand dollars a year. This 
completes the property of the President, 
with one exception. 

Some years ago he purchased ten thousand 
dollars, in nominal value, of the stock of the 
Seneca Stoue Company; to this day it has 
paid nothing, partly because the President 
has interfered to prevent Seneoa stone being 
adoplrd as building material for the Govern- 
ment. One <if the plans submitted for the 
new State Department required the use of 
Seneea stone, ami, because of his being a 
stockholder, the President refused to allow 
the plan to be even considered. The other 
stockholders complained of this, saying they 
were punished because the President owned 
stock; the President replied, expressing his 
regret, and saving that he would sell his stock 
or give it away, but for imputations cast upon 
him by political opponents btcause of his 
ownership, but he deemed it unsuitable even 
to seem to defer to sacb calumny by parting 
with his stock. 

Here, then, is the sum tot dot' the Presi- 
dent's possessions. Every dollar he owns 
caine from sources open as "the day, and every 
menthol Iris Presidency has made htm poorer 
than the month beiore; and yet the country 
ano Congress are disgraced by innuendoes and 
poisouotts hints that vast w.*aitm bas been 
amassed in the Presidential office. 



GHANT NO MONEY-MAKER AND NO OFFICS- 

seekEr. 

Had wealth gained in office been Grant's 
aim, he would never have, been President. 
As general of the army, he stood the fore- 
most in tn of all the earth. IlLs pay was for 
life, and was nearly, if not quite, as great 
annually as the Presidential salary.' In 
money value and moneymakiug opportunity, 
as^well as in ease and freedom, hi* position 
then was immeasurably better than the 
Presidency for four years or eight. Wo 
know the Presidency sought him, and not he 
the Presidency; but had avarice been bia 
thought, he would have refused the Presi- 
dency and kept the life-place of general. 

The Presidential salary has n ;t lured him 
now. We hear of "his pretensions," and of 
his "insisting upon being a candidate;" yet 
I first and last, lie never made himself a can ii- 
I date, and never, to my knowledge, has he 
expressed a wish to be reelected. So far from 
it, that for more than a year his friends were 
uneasy with solicitude lest he should with- 
hold absolutely the use of his name. 
In place of dividing or hazarding the Re- 
j publican party by seeking a reuomin ttion, 
I he never consented to stand a second lime, 
until he was assured on every baud that the 
I pirty demanded him, as the only man who 
could not be beaten; and my firm e mvieti >u 
is, that iuul no aspersion been cast upon him, 
he would personally gta !ly be mustered out. 
M.n-e than a year ago, expressing to me 
privately his earnest wish to leave, public 
toil, he said that at West Point he counted the 
days, the hours, and even fciie minutes to 
elapse, before ho should be graduated, and 
that, with a like eagerness, he counted the 
time that would complete Ids Presidential 
service; and often, heroic vinhctive injustice 
had roused him to resistance, those who 
kuew him best, and among tnem the ablest 
and purest memln-rs of the beuate, continu- 
ally expressed sohoitude lest he should refuse 
to run a<#un, and leave, the par cy distracted 
by rivalries and with nocaudidase so strong. 
But when the shower of mud and the beat- 
ing of gongs and the fout-tnouthed uproar 
burst upon him, all felt that we wexe safe. 
Grant never scares well at all, and is never 
driven when courage can maive a stand; and 
the tsvo debts the Republican party owes to 
the deserters who hive attempted to betray 
it are, first, that th.-y have cleansed and re- 
formed the party by leaving it; and, second, 
that they have insured it a candidate who, 
in the words of Horace Greeley, "never has 
been defeated, and never will be." 

***** 

Then came the next effort to throw dust in 
the people's eyes. The New York Tribune, 
and otner journals, which for a year had 
been doing rhe worse than menial offices of 
the Democratic party, raised a yt;ll thai; "the 
office-holders were going to renominate 
Grant." This bald tal ; had its run until the 
■Philadelphia Convention met. It then turned 
out that, among seven hundred and tiny del- 
egates, iht-ro were not thirty office-holders, a 
thing unexampled in American nobcies. £$o 
national convention of tUe patty in powei 



ever met before, in which men holding official 
station were not largely present. 

PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION — HENRY "WIL- 
SON. 

The roll-call in the National Convention 
was answered by a chorus of States, and with 
a unanimity and a spirit which made the 
convention the most remarkable ever held, 
and the indorsement the most flattering and 
pronounced ever given to a candidate. The 
announced wish of Mr. Colfax to withdraw 
from public life, left the convention without 
unity of sentiment as to the second place on 
th.^TWret; and the choice fell upon the man 
whom M<. Wade has well described "as the 
incarnation of American citizenship." 

Born a child of poverty and toil, the Natiek 
Cobbler during a long life of purity and pub- 
lic service, had won a place in the respect and 
good will of his countrynsen, which made it 
fit that the second office in the Republic should 
be held by Henry Wilson. Without the con- 
trast between his colleague and himself, the 
prize might not ha*re. fallen to him. But the 
inexcusable conduct of Mr. Sumner led the 
Convention to prefer Mr. Wilson for Vice 
President, for his own great merit, and also 
because his nomination would record a na- 
tional judgment against the pretension that 
the party belongs to any man, or is subject to 
the whim or dictation of any knot of men, 
however petted in the past. Mr. Wilson has 
been a Senator many years, a Senator during 
General Grant's wholn military and civil ser- 
vice. He has at all times upheld Republican 
measures, and therefore is answerable, as he 
wishes to be, for the acts of the party and the 
policy of the Administration. The objections 
to either candidate apply to both, and can be 
argued together. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND OTHERS ALSO 
SLANDERED. 

Never before did a political party plant 
itself upon personalities and scandal, and' 
upon nothing else. George Washington was 
visited with loathsome abuse by his political 
opponents. 

The convention which nominated Polk 
hung out from the balcony a '*ill- length daub 
of Benry Clay, bespattered with blood, hold- 
ing a pistol in one hand and a pack of cards 
in the other. 

These were revolting, indeed, but there is 
one marked difference between the scandals 
hurled at Washington. Jackson, Clay. Lin- 
coln, and others, and those now flung at 
Grant. 

ofThe miotic measures, the political policy, 
these other Presidents, was in each case 
opposed and criticised, and the sting of per- 
sonal calumny was used as a spur to the 
main contest." Now p rsonal abuse is the 
Alpha and 0;isegu on one side. John Quincy 
Adams was besmeared with rancorous asper- 
sion on account of his appointments to 
office, as his t ither had been for appointing 
reJatives to office, bat issue at the same time 
was always maoV upon grave political ques- 
tions. 



What political policy of Grant or his Ad- 
ministration does the opposition assail? 
What part of the present policy do they pro- 
pose to reverse or alter? What part dare 
tbfiy avow or admit they mean to change? 
Lay your finger on it if you can. Hard 
words you can find; vague, cloudy, sweeping 
denunciations; but take u;», one by one, the 
important positions and measures of the 
Administration, and except the San Do- 
mingo treaty, if that be an exception, where 
is the specific thing upon which issue is 
made? 

Let me state the case in another form. 
Suppose all the slurs and flings and vile gos- 
sip against Grant are true — suppose you ad- 
mit the whole of them — wbat do they signify? 
Suppose he has appointed a dozen relatives 
to office; suppose he has failed to appreciate 
the claims of certain politicians; suppose 
presents had been given him after he was 
President; suppose the idea of making A. T. 
Stewart Secretary of the Treasury was as 
foolish as every reformer says it was bow; 
suppose that there was no express law au- 
thorizing two young military friends to write 
in his office and j*arry his messages. Put it 
all together, and*vvhat pf it? 

If you want a mau to pilot a ship, or lead 
an army, or try a cause, or build a house, or 
set a broken arm, or run a locomotive, what 
do you care, so long as he does his work well, 
whether he is too fond of bis relatives, or 
doesn't like certain politicians, or his sub- 
jected himself to envious sneers by having 
presents given to him? All these things are 
aside from the purpose. "They are titling, 
mint, anise, and cnmuiia." His he made a 
good President? That is the question. 

BAN DOMINGO. 

Let us examine the evidence, and, first of 
all, let us take up the charges ant evidence 
against him. The San Domingo Treaty, un- 
like going to Long Brauch, or smokiug a 
cigar, or riding in a palace car, was a matter 
of public busiuess, and is, therefore, a topis 
not despicable or unworthy. His guilt and 
his innocence in this respect can ad be brief- 
ly stated. 

The Monroe doctrine is one of the tradi- 
tions of the country, and of both political 
parties. The Monroe, doctrine means oppo- 
sition to acquisitions on this continent by 
European powers. When President Grant 
came in no such question was pending, but 
such ^question soon arosa. An agent from 
tiie Dominican republic presented himself to 
the President, saying that the people, of Do- 
minica, few in< numbers, but rich in one of 
the most fertile isles of any sea, Ij ing close 
to our shores, waited to come under the 
American flag; and that failing to do so they 
would look to a European alliauce. r\*e 
President made no reply, and afterward a 
second envoy appeared, repeating these 
statements, with glowing accounts of the 
fertility and resources, of the island of San 
Domingo. 

General McCIellan, Admiral Porter, Com- 
mlsioner Hogan, and Others had previously 
examined aud feporled upon the [siand, and 



8 



hart strongly stated its advanlages as a coal- 
ing itation, a naval station, a military key to 
the Gulf of Mexico, and as an area prolific 
in coffee, sugar-cane, rice, dye-stuff, ma- 
hogany, and other valuable woods, and in 
other products of the tropics, besides iron, 
copper, gold, and salt. 

With this information before him the Presi- 
dent could not turn a deaf ear and a closed 
eye to so grave a matter. He caused two or 
three discreet persons to go, Unexpected and 
unobserved, to San Domingo, learn all they 
could, and make report. This being done, 
the President was convinced that the matter 
should be entertained, but iu the form of a 
treaty, and submitted to the judgment of the 
Senate and the country. 

THE PRESIDENT CALLS ON MR. SUMNER— A 
QUESTION OP VERACITY.' 

A treaty was proposed and reduced to 
Writing, and the President, with none of the 
"pretension" which Mr. Sumner imagines, 
paid Mr. Sumner the deference of going to 
his house, in place of sending for him to 
confer with him as chairman of the Commit- 
tee of Foreign Relations, and to ascertain 
whether he favored the treaty, and would 
support it: The interview took place in t he 
presence of two witnesses General Babcock 
and Colonel John W. Forney. 

These two witnesses, in addition to the 
President, affirm Mr. Sumner distinctly de- 
clared himself in favor of the treaty, and 
stated that he should support it. 

Colonel Forney testifies as' follows: 

"I was present at Mr. Sumner's residence 
wk n President Grant called and explained 
tnt. Dominican treaty to the Senator, and al- 
though I can not recall the exact words of 
the latter, / understood him to say that he 
won d most ch<t,r,'vUy support the treat)). At 
the President's request, 1 remained to hear 
his explanation, and am free to add, that such 
is my deep regard for Mr. Swmnsr, that his 
indorsement of the treaty went very far to 
stimulate me in giving it my own support. I 
have already said this much to Mr. Sumner, 
who, however, claims that other information 
since obtained has shaped his present action. 
"John \V. Forney." 

This statement is true or else willfully 
falee; because although Forney might have 
misunderstood Mr. Sumner at the time, be 
can not be mistaken in the fact that Mr. 
Sumner afterward admitted that he had 
changed his mind. General Babcock certi- 
fies in writing that after the interview with 
the President he and Mr. Sumner read and 
examined the treaty carefully together; and 
that at the close of the interview Mr. Sum- 
ner said, " That he could not think of doing 
otherwise than supporting the Administra- 
tion in the matter;" and further, '.'thai there 
was do objection to the instrument as a 
Whole." 

Yet Mr. Sumner, having meanwhile taken 
offense became ids views «aod wishes in other 
matters were not deferred to, became in- 
censed at the President, and Mr. Fish, de 
i ied them, and among. otJaei things the 
Sap Domingo treaty, and raiding an ii&ue 6J 



veracity with three witnesses, denied that he 
ever intimated that he would give the trea'y 
his support. 

ITis version of the interview with the Pres- 
ident, is, that the President came to his house 
and was proceeding to Hn f olrt the San Do- 
mineo matter, when he (Snmner) broke in 
with the subject of an appointment in which 
he was interested; and that when the Presi- 
dent returned to the treaty he (Sunnier) 
evaded the point altogether by a studied 
ambiguity. Here are Mr. Sumner's words, 
delivered to the Senate: "He (the President) 
proceeded with an explanation which I very 
soon interrupted, saying, by the way, Mr. 
President, it is very hard to turn out Gover- 
nor Ashley; I have just received a letter 
from the Govern nr, and I hope I shall not 
take too great a liberty, Mr President, if I 
read it. I find it excellent and eloquent, and 
written with a feeling which interests me 
much. I commenced the letter and rend two 
pages or more, when I thought the President 
was uneasy, and I felt that I was taking too 
great a liberty with him in my own house, 
but I was irresistibly Impelled by loyalty to 
an absent friend, 'while I was glad of this 
opportunity of diverting attention from the 
treaty. As conversation about Governor 
Ashley subsided the President returned to 
the treaty, leaving on my mind no very strong 
idea of what they proposed, and nothing with 
regard to the character of the negotiations. 
My reply was precise. The language is fixed 
absolutely iu my memory. 

"'Mr. President,' I said. 'I am an Admin- 
istration man, and whatever you do will al- 
ways find in me the most careful and candid 
consideration.' * * * My language, I 
repeat, was precise, well considered, and 
chosen in advance: 'I am an Administration 
man, and whatever you do will always find 
iu me the most caret id aud candid considera- 
tion.' " 

Mr. Sumner did not deny that the Presi- 
dent acted from a belief that he approved the 
treaty, nor did he deny that he left the Presi- 
dent so to act, without ever informing him 
that he had changed his mind, or been mis- 
understood. Yet Mr. Sumner in the Senate 
assailed the President personally and bitterly; 
and in a published interview in Chicago with 
Major Chamberlain, a man of character and 
veracity, who had been a Union uicr, and 
was then connected with the press, Mr. 
Sumner charged the President with venality 
and jobbery in the San Domingo treaty. 

In consequence of these, and other like oc- 
currences, it was proposed to send tbresjCom- 
missioners to San Domingo, at noeont beyond 
their expenses, to investigate and cle;y up the 
whole matter, and to ascertain whether, as 
Mr. Sumner had charged, lots in San D.mringo 
hud been staked off and marked with the 
names of the President and others. 

This inquiry seemed fair to r»os>t of those 
who opposed and to those who favored the 
treaty, bat Mr. Sumner resisted the inquiry 
inch by inch, and after a majority of Che 
foreign Relations Committee had joined him 
in denouncing it, he insisted that it should be 
refi rred to that committee. 



The same familiar parliamentary maxim 
about putting a " child to nurse with those 
who care not for it," upon which he rung 
tbe changes so often in the French Arms af- 
fair, was quoted to him in vain. When the 
sale of arms was to be inquired into, Mr. 
Sumner slandered the Senate for appointing 
a committee all in favor of investigating, be- 
cause the committee was not biased in favor 
of convicting somebody, but the San Domingo 
inquiry he insisted should go to a committee, 
of which a majority had declared in advance 
against any inquiry at all. 

At the end of a protracted and stubborn 
contest, Congress authorized a commission 
to be sent; not, however, till Mr. Snmner 
had denounced the President for not taking 
it upon himself, of his own authority, to send 
a commission without asking permission of 
Congress. Now we hear from Mr. Sumner, 
not that the President shrinks from his pre- 
rogatives, but that ho arrogantly oversteps 
them. 

Mr. Wade, Dr. Howe, of Boston, and Pres- 
ident Andrew D. White were selected as 
commissioners. They visited San Domingo, 
and made a report which few of the Ameri- 
can people have read, but which will be read 
when the din and passion of to-day are for- 
gotten. The report explodes utterly every 
calumnious pretense, and presents a state- 
ment which leaves no room to doubt the duty 
of the President to consider as he did the 
acquisition of San Domingo, and to urge it 
upon tho attention of tha Senate and the 
country. 

HOW THE PRESIDENT SHAMED EI8 ACCUSERS. 

In transmitting this report to Congress the 
President did his last act Id the matter. With 
tha report he sent a message, to which a Min- 
ister from one of the first Powers of the 
earth, told me he called the attention of his 
Government, as one of the most remarkable 
State papers of which he had knowledge. In 
that message stand these words: 

"The mere rejection by tne Senate of a 
treaty negotiated by the President only indi- 
cates a difference of opinion between two co- 
ordinate departments of the Government 
without touching the character or wounding 
the pride of either. But when such rejection 
takes place simultaneously with charges, 
openly made, of corruption on the part of 
tho President, or those employed by him, the 
case is different. In such case the honor of 
the nation demands investigation. This has 
been accomplished by the report of the Com- 
missioners herewith transmitted, and which 
fully vindicates the purity of the motives and 
action of those whs represented the United 
States in the negotiation. And now my task 
is finished, and with it ends all personal so- 
licitude upon the subject. 

"My duty being done, yours begins; and I 
gladly hand over the whoie matter to the 
judgment of the American people, and of 
their Representatives in Congress assembled. 
The facta will now be spread before the 
country, and a decision rendered by that 
tribunal whose cenvictions so seldom err, 
and against whose will 1 have no policy to 
•nforce. My opinions remain unchanged; 



indeed, It is confirmed by the report, thaC 
the interests of our country and San Domingo 
aliko invite the annexation of that Republic. 
In view of the differences of opinion upon 
this subject, I suggest that uo actiou bo 
taken at the present session beyond the 
printing and general dissemination of the 
report. Before the next session of Congress 
the people will have considered the subject, 
and formed an intelligent opinion concern- 
ing it, to which opinion, deliberately made 
up, it will be the duty of every department 
of the Government to give heed, and no one 
will more cheerfully conform to it than my- 
self." 

This was the utterance last year of the 
man whom we are told is swollen with "pre- 
tension" and "ungovernable personality." 

Among the glarlugabsurdities heaped upon 
the San Domingo matter is the allegation 
that the war was made upon the Republic of 
Ilayti. The foundation for this is that a 
vessel or two cruised in that part of tha 
ocean during the negotiations. Not a gnu 
was tired, nor a pocket pistol, nor a percus- 
sion cap, and the only warlike demonstration 
ever heard of was that a sea captaiu seut, up 
a sky rocket from the deck of his vi 
The purpose of this sky rocket, or where the 
stick came down, has never been ascertained. 

This, i-i brief, is the story of the San Do- 
mingo affair. I do not refer to it to cham- 
pion the treaty or argue its merits; that is 
another matter. My purpose is to shu .. 
that, the part acted by the President was the 
part of an honest, modest man, walking in 
the path of the Constitution and of his pre • 
decessors. 



"REMOVAL" OF MR. SUMNER. 

It may not be amiss here to allude to the 
effort to rouse indignation over the so-called 
"removal" of Mr. Sumner trorn the Commit- 
tee of Foreign Relations. Mr. Sumner was 
never "removed" at all. All Senate commit- 
tees die at the end of each session. All Senate 
committees are created anew at the beginning 
of each session. Mr. kumuer had been se- 
lected repeatedly for the chairmanship of the 
committee referred to, and ttie question was 
always, looking over thy whole Senate, who 
would be the moat useful, and, all thingscon- 
sidered, the be=,t man for the place. At the 
time in question, and for reasons easily stated, 
the Senate thought it would not be wise to se- 
lect Mr. Sumuer again for that committee, 
and be was selected for another. This was 
ecause Mr. Sumner opposed San 
Domingo, nor because he changed sides upon 
that question, nor because the Presideutor the 
Secretary of State wan ted, or did not want, Mr. 
Sumner on this committee or on that. 1 b 
sons were wholly different, they were reasous 
of the Senate alone, and reason.-* which have 
governed the formation of parliamentary 
committees everywhere since 
were known. The Committee on Foreigu 
Affairs, in eitheir House of Congress, 
not only, like other committees, to rep 
the majority of the body, but, for pi 
reasons, it must be composed of men who 



10 



can and will consult freely with the Presi- 
dent, the Secretary of State, and their assist- 
ants This is especially true of the chair- 
man, he being the oigan of the committee. 

Mr. Sumner not. only wielded his position 
as chairman in opposition to the majority of 
the Senate upon several important questions, 
and boasted in the Senate that the commit- 
tee could not be changed, but his conduct 
and language in public and in private had 
rendered it impossible for him to hold com- 
munication with those whom it was indis- 
pensable to confer with freely, and impossi- 
ble for them to confer with him. 

Men can uot do business conveniently with 
those whom they denounce and insult con- 
tinually, nor with those toward whom they 
assume offensive superiority, and the time 
came, with Mr. Sumner as chairman, when 
the Senate was left in ignorance, and busi- 
ness delayed for weeks, for lack of informa- 
tion from the State Department, merely be- 
cause Mr. Sumner did not hold communica- 
tion with it. The simple, indeed, the only 
cure for all this, was to select another chair- 
man. This was done, and nothing more; 
and it turned out that treaties, six or seven 
in number, having long lain buried in the 
committee, after the change of chairman, 
were at once brought up and ratided. 

I leave this matter after asking one ques- 
tion. Is there one man on this continent 
except Mr. Sumner who could with propriety 
have clung to a position after his associates 
who conferred it were unwilling he should 
retain it? Is there one other man who would 
have supposed that his being on this commit- 
tee or on that would "jar the harmony of 
the universe?" 

"NEPOTISM." 

Let me go on with the charges against the 
President. Few of them figure more largely 
than appointing relatives to offlee. Mr. 
Sumner has staggered the nation by the 
weight of the dictionaries, encyclopedias, 
and other big books which he has dumped 
upon us to show what "nepotism" is. 

From the morning of time common sense 
has distinguished between creating a useless 
and lucrative sinecure and bestowing it on a 
relative, and selecting a relative to do a ser- 
vice required to be done. When Hannibal 
and Frederick the Great and Napoleon and 
Emperor William put a brother or a son at 
the head of an army, with rank and titles, or 
even placed him on a throne, the world 
never thought it was like a sinecure for a 
Papal nephew. 

On the contrary, in public and in private 
business, nothing has seemed more natural 
than for those intrusted with affairs to em- 
ploy and associate with themselves persons 
in whom they most confided, whether rela- 
tives or not. In all such cases if the person 
be lit little harm can be done; but if he is un- 
fit a great wrong Is doue, whether he be a 
relative or not. If the appointment of rela- 
tives be a crime, a great many men, inclu- 
ding the busiest and most blatant "Liber- 
als," must be great criminals. Andrew 
Johnson, his Cabinet and chief officers, must 



have been huge offenders, for reasons which 
no one thought of at the time, though every 
one knew of them. 

President Johnson's son was his chief pri- 
vate secretary. Governor Seward's son»was 
Assistant Secretary of State. Edwin M. 
Stanton's son was a clerk in the War Depart- 
ment. Gideon Welles' son was Chief Clerk 
of the Navy Department; and when Gideon 
Welles employed a relative at a great remuner- 
ation to buy ships the scandal was not that he 
paid just sums to a relative, but that he paid 
such sums at all. Keverdy Johnson, Minis- 
ter to England, made his son assistant secre- 
tary of legation. John A. Dix, Minister to 
France, did the same thing with his son. All 
this was under Andrew Johnson, but when 
a drag-net of criticism and impeachment was 
cast over him, these things were uot caught up. 

" LIBERAL" RELATIVES. 

The rueful "Reformers" themselves will 
not bear examination on this point. Mr. 
Schurz pressed his brother-in-law on tb8 
President, and obtained for hi in a lucrative 
office, and when Mr. Trumbull caused his re- 
moval upon statements impeaching his fit- 
ness, Mr. Schurz raged against the Presi- 
dent for removing his brother-in-law. Mr. 
Trumbull seems to have procured appoint- 
ments for his brother-in-law, his sons, and 
his nephews, and he broke, it is said, with 
the President because he refused to appoint 
Mr. Trumbull's son to an office. That shrill 
and frisky "Reformer," Mr. Tipton, although 
not colossal himself, would need a hay scales 
to be weighed along with all his relatives he 
has helped to get office. Three brothers-in- 
law, a nephew, and a son, in office, with othes 
things for other relatives, did not satisfy his 
"liberal" inclinations, but he vigorously 
plied the President and Secretary of State to 
give a valuable consulship to another son, 
and after they declined he frequently avowed, 
once pipingly to the President himself, that 
the refusal was the cause of his opposition. 

Mr. Fenton saw no objection to giving to 
his adopted son his influence for an office, nor 
to obtaining it from Tammany Hall, and keep- 
ing it, through all the exposures of Tweed 
and the rest, although no service was attached 
to it equivalent to the pay. 

Mr. Sumner, with a brother-in-law in office 
under Andrew Johnson, was inflamed by his 
removal, and did not hesitate to make known 
his displeasure. 

Even Mr. Greeley did not scruple to coun- 
tenance his brother-in-law in obtaining the 
most lucrative collectorship of internal reve- 
nue in the United States. Nor has he hesi- 
tated to urge appointments, clearly unfit, on 
the ground of the intimate terms between 
himself and those he urged. 

RELATIVES OF TTJE PRESIDENT. 

But if General Grant has done wrong, the 
crime of others can not help him.' Let us 
look into his case. You might suppose from 
the noise that he had used a relative as a peg 
for every ho,le in the country, and that he 
had put round pegs in squaie holes and 
square pegs in round holes everywhere. It 



11 



has be«n said that b e has appointed fifty rela- 
tives, forty relative*, thirty relatives, and 
Mr Sutnup'r estimates thirteen relatives, to 
office. None of these statements are true. 
Since President Grant came in but nine per- 
sons m nil connected in the remotest degree 
with him or with his wife, have held political 
office under the United States. 

1 haw a list of them, an,! do notspeak with- 
out information, Nine is the total number 
in political office. This does not include a 
son of thti President sent as a pupil to West 
Point, long before his father became Presi- 
dent; nor does It include his brother-in-law 
Dout, who has long held a commission in the 
army by the same tenure uuder which Sber- 
maa and Sheridan, and every other officer of 
be ai mj hold- his place, and which the Pres- 
ident has no more power to give or take away 
khan the man in the moon. 

Of the nine relatives or connections in of- 
fice two wi-ire appointed by Andrew John- 
son, vu: the, President's father, postmaster 
at Covington, Ky., and his brother-in-law, 
the Rev Mr Cramer, consul at Leipsic. Mr. 
Cramer was transferred from Leipsic toDen- 
mark b\ President Grant, on the recommen- 
dation oi Bishop Simpson, Bishop J ayne, and 
many other well-known persons, friends of 
Mr Cramer. Being the brother-in-iaw of the 
President, he of course became a mark for 
"liberal" abuse, and was charged with drink- 
ing beer and being refused membership of a 
social club. 

But now comes the Cincinnati Methodist" 
Conference, about as respectable a body as has 
met iu Cincinnati lately, and certifies, after 
full investigation, the utter falsity of the 
charges. Tneh report is fortified by letters 
from Copenhagen, and by statements of the 
official journal and oth^p newspapers there, 
indignantly repelling the aspersions cast at 
Mi Cramer, and pronouncing him a blame- 
less officer and man. 

Ded acting Jesse R. G-rant and M. J. Cra- 
mer, Appointed bv Johnson, seven instances 
of relatives in political office remain, and of 
those one two were in truth and in fact ap- 
d bv the President, as I will show you. 

Orlando 11 Moss, a cousin of the President, 
holds a clerkship under the Third Auditor of 
the Treasury. He was a soldier in the war, 
and General Logan, as he stated in the Sen- 
ate, procured his appointment at the Treas- 
ury Department without the knowledge of 
the President, who, Iu fact, never heard of 
it until he real it in a newspaper. This 
leaves six, and of these four hold local offices, 
viz: George W. Dent, appraiser at San Fran- 
Cisco; .lames F. Casey, collector at New Or- 
leans; une a brother, and the other a brother- 
In law of \lrs. (riant. Peter Casey, postmas- 
ter at Vieksburg, Miss., a brother of a broth- 
er-in-law of Mrs Grant; and George B. John- 
son, assessor of the third district of Ohio, who 
married a third cousin of the President. 
These meii hold local offices and were selected 
and (nit forward, as has been universal in 
both political parties of fifty years, by the 
local Representatives. 

When Hie member of Congress from a dis- 
trict certifies the character of an applicant 
lor a post office, or any other office local in 



t\h district, and recommends his selection, tiys 
practice of the Government has al ways been 
to rely and act, upon such representations, 
holding the member of Congress responsible 
to the Government and to ins constituents, if 
he obtains unfit appointments. 

It was in this way that the four persons 
just, named were selected, the President hav- 
ing no part in the matter, if he believed the 
applicants fit and worthy, except to consult 
the wishes of the people, made known through 
their representatives, or else to overrule their 
wishes, upon the ground that it might be bet 
ter for himself not to run tho risk of having 
the matter some time or other flung in ins 
face. 

• Two appointments remain, and upon these 
the President did undoubtedly exercise his 
own choice, and his own Judgment 

The first is Alexander Sharp, a connection 
of Mrs. Grant, who was appointed Marshal 
of the District of Columbia. This officer is 
virtually a member of the President's h >u<e 
hold, ile receives company with the family, 
introduces visitors, and generally helps along. 
For these reasons some relative or near friend 
of the President's family has always been 
found for this position. 

The remaining relative is Silas Hudson. 
Minister to Guatemala, lie is cousin tot,he 
President. Iowa, the State in which he lives, 
had the mission to Guatemala before Presi- 
dent Grant came in. Fitz Henry Warren held 
it, and on his retirement Iowa claimed it stall, 
and presented Mr. Hudson, who is described 
as an able and accomplished man. The Presi- 
dent might have refused to appoint him, 
without giving just offense to the Republi- 
cans of Iowa, because he might have taken 
a man from some other State, but he did ap- 
point him and thus he furnished the needy 
" Liberals " with one awful example. 

APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE— NEW YORK AP- 
POINTMENTS. 

But the President's selections for office 
generally have, we are told, been partisan, 
personal, and ill judged. I believe the re- 
verse of all this is true. He has appo a ed 
more judges than any of his predecessors 
were called upon to select, and his selections 
are such as to vindicate him from the charge 
of making personal preference or gratifica- 
tion of himself the criterion. When he 
to select our members of the Geneva 
he named Mr. Adams, whom he li 
seen, and who was neither hia partisa 
his friend. As counsel before!!! 
bunal he selected Mr. Evarts, who was uot 
his partisan, and Mr. Curtis, and Mr, Gush- 
ing, who were political opponents Whit 
Ddmocratic President ever did the lik '.' 
Other cases might be cited to show how un- 
selfish and conscientious he has been 

In the State of New York there was no 
complaint about appointments as long as 
particular men were permitted to dictate 
them. 

The hungry "Reformers" of to-day fat- 
tened and exulted then. It was, in their es- 
timation, high merit and statesmanship 'or 
Senators aud others to crouch and prowl day 
and night around the sources of power. No 






©no overreached this thriving business; it 
overreached itself. 

"PATRONAGE" AND REMOVALS. 

The course of Mr, Greeley and Its refer- 
ence to patronage and snoils is visible in a 
letter he wrote to Mr. Cornel] after he made 
up his mind to defeat, if possible, the weed- 
ing out of Tauunanv men from the Republi- 
can organization Here is his letter, putting 
his action squarely on the ground of dissatis- 
faction with the "appointing power." 

New York, April 9, 1871. 
Dear Sir: It gives me no pleasure toad- 
rise you, and the committee of which > on 
are the head, that I am obliged to decline 
the part assigned me by the State Commit- 
tee in the proposed reorganization of th° 
Republican party of our city. Had a little 
forbearance and conciliation been evinced 6y the 
apfxnnting power at Washington, [ thinJc this 
vuuht have been different Yours, 

IlORACE GREELEY. 

The sapping and mining begun in 1870, 
aH>i secretly continued ever since, has culmi- 
nated in the bolt no longer covered up, which 
has recently occurred; its strength was in its 
secrecy and in its denied existence; its weak- 
ness Is in its being known of all men. 

It has been said that the President removed 
friends of Mr. Fenton; if this were, true, 
when made an explanation of the betrayal or 
desertion of the party, it sinks those who re- 
sort to it to the lowest depth of sordid hypoc- 
risy. But it is not true. One friend of Mr. 
Fenton was removed to gratify Mr. Moses 
II. Grinned, and in no other instance to my 
knowledge was a friend of Mr. Fenton's dis- 
placed, except for cause; while to this day 
the great body of those he recommeuded to 
office remain in office still. To illustrate this, 
si nee President Grant came in not six post- 
masters In the entire State have beenypp- 
pointed al my Instance; more than two hun- 
dred have been appointed at Senator Fen- 
ton 's instance, arid not oue has been disturbed 
Unless for official delinquency. 

COLLECTOR MURPHY. 

Mr. Murphy was appointed Collector of 
New York, but not to gratify me, or at my 
solicitation. He has been held up as a 
scoundrel, yet the records conclusively prove 
that he increased the collection ot revenue 
and diminished the percentage of cost. No 
acl of dishonesty has, to my knowledge, 
ever been proved against him. I moved and 
insisted upon the investigation which was 
lately made of the custom house— the in- 
quiry was conducted by some of the best and 
ablest members of the Senate, arid the report 
acquits Mr. Murphy of every charge impair- 
ing his integrity. 1 do not allude to the mat- 
ter, however, to go into Mr. Murphy's mer- 
its; 1 did not suggest his appointment, and 
during his collectorship I never asked or 
n commended an appointment at his hands, 
not oue. My object is to show you the wick- 
edness of the charge that the President ap- 
pointed Mr. Murphy contrary to the judg- 
ment of the best men in the party, and for 
Borne unusual or improper reason. 

Mr. Murphy was an experienced, success- 



ful business man, at leisure, and vigorous 
enough to endure the great strain and labor 
of the place.. If the President was wrong in 
selecting him, let me, show you who else 
were wrong. 

Here are some of those who, in writing. 
recommended his Domination or confirma- 
tion. Their signatures are in my possession: 
Edwin D. Morgan, George Opdyke, Henry 
Clews, Joha A Griswold, Cbas. J. Folger, 
Edwards Pierrepont. John C. Churchill, M. 
C, Orange Ferriss, M. C, Hamilton Ward, 
M. C, Giles VV Hotchkiss, M C, David S. 
Bennett, M. C, Win. A. Whitbeck, Edward 
Haigkt, George Bliss, Jr., Spofford Brothers 
& Co., John lloey, Isaac Dayton, George D. 
Morgan, Thomas* P.. Van Buren, John LI. 
Hall, and fifty-six other prominent business 
men of New York city; the Republican Gen- 
eral Committee of Kings county, New York, 
and residents of Brooklyn, New York, 110 
in number; E. W. Leavenworth and others, 
residents of Syracuse. Besides these many 
others recommended Mr. Murphy's appoint- 
ment. 

You will, I trust, pardon the time given to 
these facts; if it were right to detain you 
many others might be stated, showing the 
injustice and falsehood which have been 
piled upon the President and upon me in 
this regard. The whole pretense that the 
friends of Governor Fenton were ever ostra- 
cised because they were his friends, is the 
veriest sham that could be palmed off upon 
the public; and yet the argument of spoils is 
used without a blush to extenuate the acts 
of those who, for two years, have been plot- 
ting the destruction of the party. 

MR. SUMNER AND MR. GREELEY HATE "PRE- 
TENSION." 

It is as untruthful as ^he pretense that the 
"President is a quarreler," that he insisted 
upon a renominaMon or that he is a preten- 
tious man. The President is charged with 
"pretension" by Mr. Sumner in a speech 
written and printed beforehand, in which 
Mr. Sumner speaks of himself, and praises 
himself one hundred and fifty-six times, and 
flatters himself thoroughly and copiously 
twenty times. But Sumner is nothing to 
Greeley. Greeley thinks Grant "preten- 
tious" too, and Greeley, at the Boston Jubi- 
lee, in explaining his own fitness for the 
Presidency, modestly spokeof him self twenty 
times in ten minutes — thin is twice a minute. 
Had Sumner used the personal pronoun at 
the same nte, no printing office would have 
had big i's enough to set up the speech. 

THE " MILITARY RING." 
But we may not stop here iu counting the 
President's crimes; he has, we are told, a 
"military ring" at the White House, and 
turns the White House into a "military bar- 
racks " When he moved into the White 
House, he heard soldier-, patroling in the 
hall, and when he asked them what it meant, 
they said they were President Johnson's 
body guard, he told them he wanted no 
guard, and sent them to their quarters. The 
next day he gave orders removing all troops 
from Washington, and not a military com- 
pany has ever been there since. 



13 



The "military ring" eonslstsiof three young 
men who write for the President without a 
farthing of expense to the, Treasury. The 
President is authorized bylaw to employ anrl 
p.ay secretaries. The gentlemen who assist 
him were on hia staff in the war, and are 
now on the staff of General Sherman; their 
commissions are their own; the President 
can not take them away; and now, in time 
of peace, General Sherman does not require 
th^ir services. "One of them is detailed to 
oversee th" public parks, and the other two 
assist the President, which they do from love 
Of the man, and without a cent of pay beyond 
what they would draw if they sat at, General 
Sherman's headquarters doing nothing. This 
is the whole of it; exactly like, the case of 
Colonel Bliss and his father-in-law, President 
Taylor, or the case of Donaldson and Jack- 
son, or the case of Andrew Johnson and the 
three or four army officers who assisted him. 
It saves several thousand dollars a year, does 
the public business, and nobody is harmed. 

"SEASIDE LOITERINGS. " 

The catalogue of the President's atrocities 
would be incomplete without oue other 
thing. During ten or twelve weeks of brat 
and fever and ague at Washington, h>s family 
go to a cottage at the seaside, and he goes 
and comes from there to the Capital. 

It is eight noun from the White House to 
the cottage, with two mails a day and a tele- 
graph every instant. Nothing can occur, 
however suddenly, demanding his attention 
without bis being within immediate call; yet 
this is the occasion of constant hullabaloo. 
Governor Hoffman leaves his Slate and re- 
sides at Newport, R. I., for the summer. Mr. 
James Brooks, though member of Congress, 
goes to China and Japan, not returning even 
when Congress meets. General Jackson used 
to spend weeks at the Rip Raps in Hampton 
Roads, where no intclliizence could reach him 
from Washington in days, and then only by 
special messenger, and whence he could not 
return for days, if sent for. No telegraph, 
railroad, daily mail, or even steamboat plied 
there then. President Adams, separated 
from Massachusetts by a stag^-eoach ride of 
many days, used to spend weeks at his home. 
Washington passed much time at Mount 
Vernon, and even that nas further removed 
in communicating with the' Capital then than 
Long Brauch is now. 

***** 

The public, however, will be satisfied with 
one tact, viz: that no instance has yet been 
discoveivd or pretended in which anything, 
ho .\ ever small, was neglected or left undone 
because tiie President was absent. This one 
fact answers a hurricane of abuse. 

I have discussed, perhaps at inexcusable 
length, the paltry and personal slanders 
dragged into the campaign, and yet nothing 
has been said of the blameless, simple, dady 
life of the President, nor of his innocence of 
a quarrelsome disposition. 

He quarreled with Lee, and every other 

rebel wlwle rebellion lasted, lie settled tnat 

I, and has never quarreled sine**, unless 

it be Quarreling out to ube^ Intolerable dicta- 



tion, and simply to let alone men who oppose 
and denounce him. 

Let us turn from the man to the Magistrate, 
aud scan his official record and stewardship. 

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE-*- 
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 

What has the Administration done in three 
years? First, it has maintained our rights 
with every foreign Power, and kept the peace 
with all the world. Governor Seward said to 
me last year after he had girdled the earth 
with his novels: "How remarkable is our 
success in foreign affairs; but two years ago 
Russia was our only friend in Christendom! 
and now America has not an enemy in the 
world." lie proceeded to say, that this good 
result came from the temperate and just 
course of our Government. Mr. Sumner has 
lately told us that we are in a "muddle wbh 
everybody." Can any of you tell with whom 
we are in a "muddle?" Can any of you 
name a sea, a continent, or an island where 
onr flag is not respected? Can any of you 
name a commercial center in which our se- 
curities are not sought? Can any of you 
name a Power which denies a right to one 
American citizen? Spain's release of Dr. 
llouard, whose American citizenship is very 
doubtful, leaves no controversy, no contested 
matter, with any Power on earL.h, save Eng- 
land. 

With England preceding Administrations 
failed to settle several large and dangerous 
questions. This Administration has com- 
posed them all in one treaty, applauded by 
the country and the world as one of the best 
products of statesmanship and civilization. 
Recently a difference arose, as to the con- 
struction of the treaty, and England was un- 
willing and afraid to submit the question to 
the tribunal to which it plainly belonged, 
The British Government took the grouni 
that they bad agreed to a treaty which did 
not contain what they intended; that their 
meaning was not set down in language so 
plain that they were willing to trust it, to the 
arbitration at Geneva; and they insisted that 
we should withdraw part of onr claims. 
This was a strange position, and involved a 
humiliating admission; it was saying virtu- 
ally that their agents had not been aOl * to 
cope with ours. Indeed, this was said wit!>> 
out disguise and with taunts in the British 
Parliament. There is nothing here surely to 
wound American pride. 

England's refusal to go to trial, unless we 
would agree not to pr'-tve or argue ptrtof 
our case, was met on our side by the st tte-' 
ment th«lt we insisted upon having the lav* 
settled for the future in regard to indirect 
damages so called. 

Our Government insisted that hereaftet 
England should never demand any d images 
from us except such as s!ie admitted to be 
within the law of nations no-v. Upon this 
ground the President declined t ■> withdraw 
any of our chums, spying, however, tliat in- 
direct losses would iu;r. be pres-sed, provided 
by agreement between the parties, or by a 

•i of the C«url ,ve e mid 'v. gu ira-n 
tax the future against similai it ■-■.'■ £fe« 



14 



potiations firmed, resulting in a supplemental 
article <>r clause of the treaty, n\u\ befora 
this was filially accepted the Tribunal at 
Geneva did, what we all the while main- 
tained fts right to do, and made a decision 
good for the future as well as the present,, 
and good for us as well as for England, 
denying the right of one nation to recover 
certain kinds of damage from another. 
By this rule we will settle with Erie- 
land as often as she is a belligerent and 
we a neutral; and if she is content, 
we should be. We are to be the neutral 
hereafter, we shall have no more rebellions, 
no foreign Power will be impatient to get up 
a war with us; but England, differently sdtu 
ated, with her elbows hitting the elbows o," 
other nations, may not be so fortunate; and 
when her commerce and her cause stiff, rs 
from American citizsns, or from cmisera or 
privateers built in America, we will measure 
to her the rule of damages she asks foi no""w. 
Whether England keeps or breaks the twenty, 
it will remain the greatest event of diplomacy 
in our history. Had Hamilton Fish rendered 
no other public service in his life, his ability, 
devotion, and success in this great matter 
would inscribe his name high up ou the roll 
of illustrious names. The only error pre- 
tended in the management of the Alabama 
claims has been the maintenance of views of 
which the noisest advocate always has been 
Mr. Sumner; but even hr has not succeeded 
in producing a "muddle" with any foreign 
Power, not even with the aid of hfcjjriend 
Schurz, by his romances and vagaries^ touch- 
ing the sale by American merchants of arms 
to France. 

WHAT HAS THE ADMINISTRATION TO DO 
WITH PAYING THE DERT? 

From Washington down, every Adminis- 
tration has been tried by its financial results. 
But now we hear that the authorities deserve 
no eredil for paying the debt, that the people 
have paid it. Of' course, the people have 
paid it, but who has honestly collected and 
accounted for the money? Who has reduced 
the expenses? Who has upheld the public 
credit? Who has cheapened the Interest? 
Who ha* wisely applied the money? Who 
has made the greenback in your pocket, that 
used to be worth only r- If its face, almost 
as good as gold? Tne people paid taxes 
under Andrew Johnson twice as great as 
they pay now. Why was not twice as much 
of the debt paid then? Why was only 
813,000,000 of the debt paid then with ex- 
travagant taxation? Under Andrew John- 
son, the whif-ky ring, the contractors, and 
other "Liberals," preyed upon the revenue 
s», that it is calculated one-quarter of the 
whole was lost. Under the present Adminis- 
tration, after taxes were lessened $84,(100,000 
a year, collections increased $84,000,000. 
Did the people do that? 

It' one of your agents made a given amount 
of mof]"v gu twice as far as an agent before 
him hud noise, w.uld it be you, or the agent, 
to beeivd'ied or Warned? 

Bat look a f&tle further. The expenses 
everywhere have been reduced, and so re- 
duced that fehey are less per capita this year 



than they were under Washington, and less 
than they were urKh-r any Administration 
'since, with only four exceptions, and in case 
of these four the advantage is only apparent 
and but a few cents. Compare the year I860, 
under Buchanan, with last year, 1871. In 
I860, the population being 31,443,321, the ex- 
penses were $1 95 for each person; 18J1, 
population 38,565,983, expenses $1 76 for 
each person. There is one great diffei^nce 
between these two years not shown by the 
figures. 

In 1860 the whole amount expended for 
public buildings, improvements of rivers and 
harbors, and other public works throughout 
the country, was only $2,913,371 48. 

In 1871 such public improvements were 
made and paid for. to the amount of $10,- 
733,759 05. 

If a! Usance be made for these lasting im- 
provements, greater during the last two 
years than before, the actual cost per head 
of governing the country under Grant is as 
small as it ever was sluce the foundation of 
the Government. 

In 1858 the War Department cost $25,679,- 
121 63 It) 1859 it cost. $23,154,720 53. 

In 1860, under Floyd, the accounts of the 
Department were not closed, but went over 
in part to Lincoln's administration. 

In 1871 the War Department cost $22,376,- 
981 28. 

Taking the whole running expenses of the 
Government, for the executive, legislative, 
and judicial departments, including the army 
and navy, and foreign ministers, consuls, and 
agents, the cost in I860 was $61,402,408 64. 

The same accouut in 1871 was $68,684,- 
613 92. 

With new States and Territories, with seven 
millions more population, with new courts, 
and the internal revenue establishment, the 
whole excess of cost in 1871 over 1860, was 
$7,282,205 28. 

Here is an increase of thirteen per cent, of 
cost, with an increase of twenty-five percent, 
of population, saying nothing of increased 
demands. 

The ".Reformers" had not looked up these 
figures when Mr. Trumbull stated, at the 
Cooper Institute, that the expenses of the 
Government;, aside from interest and pen- 
sions, ought to be not more than thirty-three 
per cent, greater now than before the war; it 
turns out I fiat the increase is only about one- 
third as much as he thinks it should be. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Durinefthe present year large additional 
reductions are to come; internal revenue dis- 
tricts are to be reduced to eighty in all; su- 
pervisors of revenue to ten in aft; deputies 
and assistants will vanish with the taxes 
they heretofore collected, and only a skeleton 
of the revenue establishment will be left. 
Four millions and a half will lx; saved this 
year in the. cost of conducting the Internal 
K<t venue Bureau. 

The^Freed men's Bureau, established by 
Lincoln and Stanton, and Sherman and 
Howard, and vetoed by Andrew Johnson, 
which has co-it much money and done much 
good, is this year to be finally wound up. 



15 



*5SJ* ^L^SttB e prnn,n * whic » 

service have nndl aS Iridl , iln am{ revenue 

country ever bar? in er , Viee reform **» 
I- 1" civil service reform 



CENTRALISM »_ H OW CODERS HAS CK* 

tected. But this ' f S ' l\ a J e ^V ^ 



On.-r.u • tu - ln CIV] ' service wferm iJ oor » 
want is the pioneer President wS « . me hi 
torejum inaugurated oV pro pS it * i >e ' tected. .»mi pro 

cb«k murders and bn2 'Purposes to 

Gra 

men recommended hv «R^ftT ein ° ave been I J"™ wno cri <*l the lo(idP«r%*Th U w-VF^ 

mouthinc abniYe h*Y R6for mers,V now Jaw - Here are PtIi « l,LSt f°r the Kuklux 
whereve? fo, in thS' ) W^ents; C 12, 1871, XJ -ho cW w» spokeu Jl,ne 

1 ™»t, taSaSS.^SBSSL'i *o»>W 





o»t tariff ar-faf ,^"ri ^^ u 'f. B r ,H ' n '- ^'v. Si f' ''^ ls tf >« orh* 

which, if it gain hf ■ U 11 ' 1 lv "'' ! " i< » ) > and 
K lu auMl > Wl " usher in the pay- 



16 



meat of the rebel drbt, the payment of rebel 
ons, i ho payment o1 losses from the rav- 
ages of the war, and a brood of dire, heresies. 

This is ho Cbimera. Democrats and "Re- 
formers" struck hands, at the last session, in 
admitting rebels tot.hu Court of Claims, to 
recover Tor their cotton captured in the war; 
lind every Democrat, with most of Ihe new 
Converts'ln the Senate, voied to pay from the 
Treasury rebel claimants, for carrying ihe 
hi ail in ihe South rn States after they went 
Into rebellion; ah act which Republicans pre- 
vented after a weary contest. 

"Centralism" is a mere goblin. Whenever 
Congress transcends the Constitution tlie 
Court will so decide, and the people will 
apply the corrective. But watch you, and 
pray to be delivered from that dogma of State 
Independence which once drenched the land 
in blood aud covered it with tixes and with 
mourning. All the "Centralism" we have 
how is a strong and stable Government, under 
which the nation prospers, wi h safety to 
property, labor, liberty, and life. Woe to 
the day, and woe to the hour, when the. peo- 
ple change it off, for, they know not what. 

CANT ABOUT INVESTIGATIONS. 

With some minds the greater the humbug, 
the greater the sensation. The country is 
filled with factional outcry, and one of the 
Catch-word-; is "investigations." "Reform- 
ers" in the Senate wasted weeks and months 
In attempting to mislead the public in this 
respect. It was brazenly pretended that men 
like Buckingham, or' Connecticut, and Ham- 
lin, of Maine, and Freltnghuysen, of New 
Jersey, and Howe, of Wisconsin, and An- 
thony, of Rhode Island, and others of the 
best and purest statesmen of tbe. nation, at- 
tempted to clonk fraud and stifle inquiry. 
The. New York Tribune and other un- 
principled n^wspaue** published pretended 
speeches which >*<->«- never made, put into 
the mouths of Administration Senators, as 
uttend in caucus, by myself among others, 
declaring that the Administration should not 
be investigated. Nothing could be more 
false. No friend of the Administration ever 
objected to the most searching and sweeping 
investigation, but always the contrary. The 
only men who thwarted or delayed investi- 
gation were our opponents. They did, as 1 
will show you. 

We urged that one committee could not 
investigate everything, and that to make the 
work thorough it must be parceled out to 
different committees. This was met with a 
gtorm of electioneering flings and insinua- 
tions, which consumed days. Finally, to 
bring the matter to an end, we acquiesced in 
having a single committee, to which all in- 
vestigations should go. Every man of sense 
must see that if the object was full and 
ppc-dv inquiry this was not the way, and so 
the event proved. 

Wh.u the committee was raised I moved 
an investigation of the New York custom 
house. Mr. Trumbull passionately object- 
ed, and threw the. resolution over by a i*>iut 
Of order. A.s soon as a majority could do so 
i- was taken up and passed. Tiie Hodge res- 
oluble, iolknved, and other resolutions, and 



whnt was the result? The committee, thus 
overloaded, was aole to complete only the 
custom house inquiry, and this shoved Un- 
der everything else. * The Hodge matter and 
other things wait; and when the presidential 
election is over, and there is nothing to be 
made by clan-trap and buncombe, we shall 
be permitted probably to refer them to ap- 
propriate committees. When the French- 
arms resolution was offered by Mr. Sumner, 
the Republican Senators offered to vote the 
investigation instantly, but Mr. Sumner ob- 
jected, and asked its postponement. When 
he, moved it again all other business was at 
once laid aside, and again the majority 
offered to vote for the inquiry, But Mr. 
Sumner insisted upon speech-making, and 
he and Schurz went at it, attempting to 
prove in advance all the dismal rigmarole of 
a talse and foolish preamble. 

Of course, their speeches could not go un- 
answered to tbe country, lest silence should 
seem to give consent; and so days and weeks 
were wasted when in Ave minutes the pre- 
tended object could have been accomplished. 
The pretended object was not the real ob- 
ject, as everybody knew; the aim was politi- 
cal effect, and "for this tbe "Reformers" 
would besmirch the Government, even 
though the crusade disgraced us, or involved 
us with foreign powers. 

The result, as you know, was ruinous to 
those who began it The French-arms In- 
vestigation is a fair sample of the rest. We 
had in all, in the two Houses, fourteen com- 
mittees set on the Administration. Such a 
thing was never heard of before. No Ad- 
ministration was ever so put under a micro- 
scope, or pried into with malicious eyes. 
What did it all amount to? Directly and in- 
directly these investigations probably cost, 
in time, money, and neglect of legislation, 
millions of dollars — and who is benefited? 
Nobody but the Administration they were 
intending to destroy. 

KUKLUX DOINGS. 

The only investigation of value related to 
the condition of the South. The Commirtee 
on Southern Outrages made a report ful of 
frightful lessons. In ten States au organiza- 
tion exists known as the "Kuklux Klan," or 
"In viable Empire of tbe South." It is a res- 
urrection of the remains Of the rebel army. 
General Forrest, of Fort Pdlo.v, was its chief 
head, or "Grand Cyclops." It is a secret 
oath-bound band. Its object is to kill and 
drive out "Radicals" and " carpet- bag- 
gers, "and to intimidate the blacks frotn vo- 
ting against the Democratic party. Speak- 
ing to those who have, not read the evitfeuce, 
the existence, the nature, and the deeds of 
these assassius are so incredible that I dare 
not ask you to accept, them on my word. Let 
iu« state, a few things contained in fhe re- 
port, and proved by much testimony. 

General Forrest admits his belief that the 
order is 500,000 strong. In the two Caro- 
lina^, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and 
Florida, one hundred counties have been k-pt 
under a reign of terror. One of the obligar 
tions of luembersuij) is to commit perjuiw as 
a witness or a juror. Many leading wealthy 



17 



men are among the actors, and until Con- 
gress interfered the State authorities w.-re 
powerless, or unwilling to enforce the laws; 
barbarous atrocities occurred nightly, but no 
one was punished or even arrested. Whites 
aud blacks were murdered aod robbed, their 
houses burned, and nameless deeds done by 
disguised bauds. 

In fourteen counties in North Carolina 
eighteen murders were done, and three hun- 
dred and fifteen whippings occurred. In 
nine counties in South Carolina forty mur- 
ders and over two thousand other outrages. 
In twenty-nine counties of Georgia seventy- 
two murders and one hundred and twenty- 
six whippings. In twenty-six counties of 
Alabama two hundred aud fifteen murders 
and one hundred and sixteen oth'er outrages. 
In twenty counties of Mississippi twenty- 
three murders and seventy-six other out- 
rages, and in a single county of Florida one 
hundred and fifty-three murders. In these 
ninety-nine counties 426 murderswere done, 
aud 2,909 other acts of violence. 

The object in all this, as extorted from 
many witnesses, was "to put down Radical 
rule and negro suffrage. " Thus scourged, 
the people of the South piteously appealed to 
Congress for protection. A committee was 
sent to the Southern States to learn the facts, 
and a law was passed authorizing tbeUaifced 
States courts to act in the matter, flie same 
law authorized the suspension, for a limited 
space, of th« habeas corpus, in case it should 
be necessary. Under this act of Congress, at 
the January term of court in South Carolina, 
001 men were indicted by the grand jury for 
these crimes of violence. la the nurtti*m 
district, of Mississippi 490 were indicted, and 
in the southern district of Mississippi 152. In 
North Carolina 981 men were indicted. 

Iu South Carolina five of these culprits 
were immediately tried and convicted, and 
fifty-three of them pleaded guilty. At the 
next term others were tried, and many more 
pleaded gudty. In the other Scales the 
courts are at work metiug out justice. These 
are the offenders in whose behalf Waue 
Hampton and others raised money and em- 
ployed counsel. 

Keverdy Jtihnson and Henry Staubery 
were the' counsel, aud 1 read a p.issage from 
Mr. Johnson's argument to the jury: 

"But Mr. Attorney General has remarked, 
and would hava you suppose, that my friend 
and myself are here to defend, to justify, or 
to palliate the ouira_tes that may have been 
perpetrated in your S:ate by this association 
of Kuklux. He makes a great mis-tike as to 
both <>f us. I have listened with unmixed hor- 
ror to some of the testimony which has b en 
brought before you. "" The- outrages proved are 
shocking to humanity; they admit of neither 
Recuse or justification,; they violate evei'y obliga- 
tion which law and nature vnvpuse unon man; 
they snow that the parties engaged were brut », 
insensible to the obligation of humanity and 
religion." 

Toe. action of Congress and the. President 
has put an end to much of this bloody busi- 
ness; but stopping murder is called "cen- 
tralism," and we are being stoned for that. 



SOUTHERN STATE GOVERNMENTS — AM- 

NESTY. 

The South has been for years a fertile field 
for electioneering sensation. Tile State gov- 
ernments iu some of he Southern States have 
been weak and bad, and the "Liberal-" want 
to try us for that. What have we to do with 
it? Why, they say we imposed political dis- 
abilities on the rebels. Who imposed politi- 
cal disabilities on rebels? We are told the 
people pay the debt, but, we never hear that 
the people imposed the disabilities yet they 
did. The fourteenth amendmeutof the. C in- 
stitution, ratified by the Legislatures of three- 
quarters of the States, is the disability under 
which rebels have been. That amendment 
does not touch the right to vote, but leaves 
every rebel a voter. It touches only the right 
to huld office. It provides that the men who 
took an oath to support the Constitution aud 
then fought against it, thus adding per- 
jury to tieason, shall not hold office; and it 
further provides that Congress, by a two- 
thirds vote, may relieve them. It is foolish 
to pretend, all being allowed to v>te, that the 
majority could not rule; it is absurd to pre- 
tend that the few rebels, who were perjured 
as w**U as traitors, were the only fit men to 
elect State officers and legislators. It follows 
that thu fourteenth amendment is not the 
cause of buxl men being elected to office in 
the Southern States. The truth is, as was 
idmndanUy proved before the Kuklux Gom- 
ifuttea, that capable, educated men, eligible 
to office, refused to accept it, and refolded to 
vote, aud pursuaded the reb Is generally not 
to vote, all for the purpose of frustrating re- 
construction in the South, and making it 
odious. 

Amnesty or want of amnesty had nothing 
to do with labs in Southern Legislatures any 
more than in our own. No man has'e/er 
asked to be relieved who has not been re- 
lieved promptly. Indeed, liistory has no in- 
stance of such forbearance and mercy as has 
been granted to the ring-leaders of rebellion. 

Not oue was ever visited with the least 
penalty, oxcept being barred from office, for 
committing perjury as well as treason, and 
bills lor ivliet began at once, and ah who 
asked soon received forgiveness. Whether a 
geuttral act, naming no one, but. covering 
rebels in a body, was a compliance with ;he 
fourteenth amendment, may well be doubted. 
Be this as it may, the President recommended, 
and Congress on the 2lat of last May adopted, 
such an act. It would have passed weeks 
earlier, but that "Liberal-," who pretended 
to be for a " civil rights bill " by itself, voied 
avowedly to make it as obnoxious as possible, 
and then, when it became part of the am- 
nesty bill, some of them voted against it and 
others dodged; and this when two votes would 
have carried it. Ami now, when not more 
than one or two hundred men in the whole 
South are left ineligible to office, and these 
men who still defy and spurn the Constitu- 
tion, we are gravely told that " amnesty " is 
a great issue before the American people. 

Amnesty, as an issue, is as dead as the 
politicians who prate about it. Lt is about aa 
vital as Air. Sumuer's published reason loj? 



18 



supporting Mr. Greeley, namely, that Gree- 
ley was bora the same year that he was him- 
self. 

"Peace, good will toward men," have been 
for three years national watchwords. Even 
the old Indian scares ha ,r e failed to bring 
on Indian wars, which were always contrac- 
tor*' wars. For the first time in our history 
an Indian peace policy has triumphed, mas- 
sacres have been prevented, the whites and 
the Indians alike have been spared, and mil- 
lions saved to the nation. 

WHY CHANGE?— WHO ASKS IT? 

Such is the Administration, and such the 
stable, prosperity and the wholesome condi- 
tion of things, at. home and abroad, which 
we are asked to trade off. for we know not 
what. To suppose it will be done would be 
to brand free government as a failure, and 
to insult the sense of the American people. 

What is the change offered us? Dues any- 
body know? When did the necessity for any 
change arise? 

Certainly not when ii September, 1870, Mr. 
Greeley called the Reform movement "a con- 
spiracy to destroy the Republican party;" not 
in September, 1871, when Mr. Grcvley drew 
resolutions fully indorsing the present Ad- 
ministration; not on the Sfc'n of January, 1871, 
when in a speech Mr. Greeley said: "I wu 
ture to suggest that General Grant will be for 
better qualified for that momentous trust in 
1872 than he was in 1W>8;" not when in Feiv- 
ruaryv 1871, Mr. Greeley said that a defeat of 
the Republican party in trie nation would be 
a "disgrace and humiliation," not only a year 
ago when Mr. Greeley said: 

"When a Republican Convention, fairly 
chosen after five consultation and the frank 
interchange ot opinion, shall have nominated 
Republican candidates for President and Vice 
President, we shall expect to urge all Repub- 
licans to give them a hearty, effective sup- 
port, whether they be or be not of those whose 
original preference has been gratified." 

Not on the 25th of April, 1871, when Mr. 
Greeley placed his hostility to President Grant 
squarely and solely on the ground of certaiu 
appointments in the city of New York. 

Who were the discoverers of the need of a 
change? Who called the "Cincinnati Con- 
vention?" Did the business men of the 
country call it? Did the public-spirited, the 
unselfish, and the patriotic call it? Every 
one knows that it was the work of the politi- 
cal "outs." A few respectable men were 
drawn In, but the great body of the movers 
were, as Greeley used to say of the Demo- 
crats, "the very scum" of politics. 

Nearly every man whose name appeared 
was either a disappointed office-seeker, a 
man with a grievance, or a man with a bad 
character. 

There is an effrontery bordering on the sub- 
lime iu professional corruptions, the worst and 
most notorious, starting up to berate honest 
people. From such effrontery came a con- 
vention, which from beginning to eud, was 
managed to cheat and defraud the respecta- 
ble men who were drawn into it and the pub- 
lic generally. That the nomination was bar- 
tered iiad bellowed tnrough we are assured 



by the best who were present; and now the 
Democratic party has died by its own hand, 
ami gone for eternal punishment to Horace 
Greeley. 

MR. GREELEY AND HIS "CLAIMS." 

An examination of the fitness of Mr. Gree- 
ley, and his claims to public confidence, is 
the duty of every citizen. That he has shown 
great talent as an editor and writer, all ad- 
mit, but nearly all else claimed for him now, 
I deny. The very talents he has shown unfit 
him for the Presidency. 

It is said that a great debt is due and un- 
paid by the Republican party to Mr. Greeley. 
The account stands very differently, as 
most persons understand it. 

Does not Mr Greeley owe much to the Re- 
punlicnn party? That party gave him wealth, 
fame, and influence. ILs taknt and indus- 
try were his own; but the Tribune was sus- 
tained as a party organ, and was made a 
miue of wealth by tho Republican party. 
Who does not know that Republicans, 
whether private citizens or postmasters, or 
other "office-holders," or country editors, or 
committee-men, haw made common cause 
for years for the Tribtme, have organized 
clubs, pushed and begged for subscriptions, 
and made the Tribune what it was? 

Who does not know that this year tens of 
thousands of Republicans paid their money 
in advance for ttie 'Tribune, while yet its 
cbtws wern half concealed, holding itself out 
as a Republican paper, and that the money 
thus obtained by false pretense is kept to sus- 
tain the paper in its present gross and knav- 
ish course? Who does not know that the po- 
sition given Mr. Greeley by the Republican 
party did more than all else to make sale of 
his liook called the "American Conifer," 
which is said to have paid hiui more tlun a 
hundred thousand dollars? He sent canvass- 
ers to solicit subscribers fortius book, and 
who subscribed, who paid him a fortune tor 
his book? Was it the Democrats or the no- 
pan y men, or was it those to whom he says 
now "he owes nothing?" 

It us true that Mr. Greeley has seldom been 
intrusted with office, thoagh he has long 
sought office from the Whig and Republican 
parties. This, however, is dimply from want 
of confidence in his practical judgment and 
consistency. 

Prior to 1854 Mr. Greeley's extreme crav- 
ing for office was not understood, and his 
letter to Governor Seward, November 11, 
1854, dissolving the "political firm of Seward, 
Weed & Greeley" because office had not been 
given him, amazed the public. 

In this letter, after reierring to some of the 
offices he wanted from the whig party, and 
upbraiding Governor Seward for not appoint- 
ing him to Miuie office in 1837, he says: 

"Now came the gnat scramble of the 
swell- mob of coon mtustrels aud cider suck- 
ers at Washington, I not being counted iu. 
t Several regiments of them .vent on from this 
city; but no one of the whole crowd — though 
I say it who should not — had done so much 
toward General Harrison's nomination and 
election as yours respectfully. 1 asked noth- 
ing, expected nothing; bat yon, iJooernoT 



19 



Seward, ought to have asked that I be postmas- 
ter of New 'York. 

* * * # * 

"Let me speak of the same canvass. I was 

once sent to Congress for ninety days, merely 

to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein 

for four years. 

****** 

"But this last spring, after the Nebraska 
question had created a new state of things 
at the North, one or two personal friends, of 
no political consideration, suggested my 
name as a candidate for Governor, and I did 
not discourage them." 

While he belonged to the Republican party 
Mr. Greeley was a candidate for Governor 
several times, for Senator, for Representa- 
tive, and for other offices; always being de- 
feated in the nomination or election, except 
When once chosen for a ninety-day term in 
Congress, when made Presidential elector in 
186-t, and when he ran for the constitutional 
convention under a law insuring his election 
without regard to the number of votes. 

WHAT MR. GREELEY DID WHEN IN OFFICE. 

The Republican party has been blamed for 
not gratifying Mr. Greeley's ambition for 
office, but the mass of the party, thouuh ap- 
preciating his eccentric genius, ha.-* believed 
In in erratic, and not possessed of the practi- 
cal wisdom, moderation, or business capacity 
to make a useful or safe official As often 
as he has been fried in public station he has 
failed. His brief career in Congress was a 
sad fiasco; ha more than once excused his 
course by saying that lis voted without un- 
derstanding the question, and had voted as 
he did not mean to. (<~!ongressional Globe, 
1848-9, vol.20, pp.269, 336.) lie involved 
himself in questions of veracity, which com- 
pelled him to retreat from hid statements; 
and on one occasion was confronted on tin* 
floor by members who flatly testified to the 
untruthfulness of what he said. (Globe, as 
above. ) Libels, published in his paper, sub- 
jected him to indignities, and even to worse 
embarrassments. 

His course in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion was a series of peevish attempts to as- 
sume everything and do everything, and re- 
sulted in his impatiently and prematurely 
outfitting his post, after pouring upon mem- 
bers a volley of oaths. Even the task of act- 
ing as chairman of a lDcal committee, last 
year, brought him into dilemmas and appar- 
ent breaches of his word which a man of 
common discretion woukt have avoided. 

His affiliations with men have shown him 
a poor judge of human nature, and the ease 
with which the designing impose upon him 
has always excited the sympathy of his 
friends. The worst men have stuck to him 
and used him, with no more power on his 
part to shake them olf than a ship has to 
shake off its barnacles. Ilis management of 
every business, except editing a newspaper, 
has shrnvn him wanting in business capacity; 
and as an editor he is always lacking a bal- 
ance wheel to keep him from absurd incon- 
sistencies. 

His investments of money with the shift- 
less and the dishonest; his embarking in 



ventures with Tweed, and lending his name 
to int-n unworthy of trust, can bo excused onlj 
on th' 1 ground of want of sound judgment. 
His Fourierisrn and Asrarianism attest a 
mind given to vagaries like this; o:i 'me oc- 
casion he insisted that there could be no 
property in land, because property was the 
product of human labor, and that land., like 
air. belonged to (rod Almighty, and could 
not he owned by man. 

Building a barn, where a barn could not 
stand, and was washed away, planting tur- 
nips where turnips could not grow, trying ro 
substitute cabbages for tobacco, and then as- 
suming to teach fanners in all the varying 
climates and soils of tiie continent, what to 
raise and how to plow, and when to hoe, can 
only pass as the grotesque and harmless 
antics of a man of oddities, flattered b~y 
many, and most of all by himself. "A jack 
of all trades is master of none," "and what 
he knows about farming," would show Mr. 
Greele', a universal genius, if it were not for 
what he could learn from those he assumes 
to teach. 

The overweening confidence with which he 
holds his opinions, and the rude vehemence 
with which he utters them, make the sudden- 
ness with which he changes them the plainest 
proof of insincerity or unsoundness; while 
the epithets ami libels with which he pursue* 
those he hates or envies, shows a straugdy 
unchristian and unbridled natufe. 

Mr. Greeley's own traits of character, a3 
seen by his party associates, liav« mule it 
belter for him and fur the public that he 
should not hold office, and when Andrew 
Johnson nominated him, alter he bailed Jef- 
ferson Davis, as Minister to Austria, rumor 
is greatly at fault if Senators who now sup- 
port him, even all those who then belonged 
to the Republican party, could be induced to 
vote for his confirmation. 

Truthful history will never record that 
when Horace Greeley deserted the Uepub- 
Icin p.irty fur \ Presidential nomi i 1 i > a, n s 
owed the party nothing; or that the party 
owed him a great and unpaid debt; or that 
the party was wrong in not selecting such a 
man for high public trusts. The verdict will 
be rather that he spoke like a leiiem< i^ in- 
grate, when on the 12th of June, 1871, he 
said to a street audience, "I am perfectly 
willing to pass receipts with the Itepuolican 
party, and say that our accounts are now 
settled and closed." 

MR. GREJELEY AS A POLITICIAN. 

Eccentricity and fickleness are Mr. Gree- 
ley's traits; as a politician, he has boiled and 
advised bolting; he has opposed the n >mi na- 
tion or election of every President who has 
been chosen for thirty years; he has quar- 
reled with every Administration; he lias as- 
sailed the character »f those he differed with, 
wantonly and savagely; he has imputed cor- 
ruption toothers merely for not' von ng or 
thinking as he did; he sought by intrigue the 
defeat of Mr. Lincoln after he was nominated 
the second time, and as late as Saptemb -r 2, 
1861, wrote secret letters, which have since 

COl le toTigilt, to C HlCOCS LleaHU r es :o prevent 

Lincoln's election; he strove to poison i J redi- 



20 



dent. Grant against cspahl* and hrmest R •- j 

Eublieaus, and advised him to excluvl] f.mm 
is councils men trained in public affairs; h& 
has recommended unfit meu for office,, and 
insisted on their appointment; afteriudorslng 
and applauding everything involving priuoi- 
ple or relating !<> the public interest done by 
the ;vdministration, lie has .struck at the 
President on aeeouat of "patruuage," aud 
bolted the party, after manoeuvring more 
than a year to get its nonrinatiou. 

On trie 4th of May, 1H71, he wrote William 
Larmore, who had inquired whether he would 
be a candidate for President before th« Repub- 
Can Convention tins year, " I f ully peopose 
plso never to decline any duty or responsi- 
bility which my political friends see (it to de- 
volve upon me;" and having thus put him- 
Self in the field, he started for the South to 
make speeches, in one of which he asserted 
over anain the right of secession, aud iu 
another hoped for the time wheu bis country- 
men would feci pride iu Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson. 

IL> apologized for Tammany robbers, en- 
joying from them at the same time an im- 
mense advertising patronage, and blocking 
the wheels of reform after the Tmnuiauy 
frauds were known to the whole nation; he 
colluded wih men known to bt< in the inter- 
est of Tammany Hail, and whom he had pre- 
viously so branded himself, to prevent the 
It', publican party being puiged of Tamuiauy 
influence; for two years before his open de- 
sertion he sought to divide and destroy the 
Republican party of New York, and tra- 
duced many upright men because of their 
resistance to the domination of corruptiou- 
ists; and finally, in signing the call for the 
Cincinnati Convention, "vhich adopted the 
Free-trade Missouri platform, he turned his 
back on the only political principle or idea 
prominent for the last ten years, of which he 
had not before been on both sides. 



CONCLUSION. 

Yet in the blind-staggers of faction the 
American people are challenged to scan and 
decide upon this record. 



Such a coiUM-m, and such a nomination, 
in" in eh.i.is and di wrier 

''Libn! Republic in " rnovein mis have 
been tried in other SUtes, and, until the re- 
sults wero felt, thev succeed d. They tried 
in Virginia nominating a Republican for 
U-overuor, on a bargain with the Dem>ert1>s» 
d.uiy Republicans were entrapped, md Vir- 
ginia is cursed with a rule which ttiftbest 
Democrats are ashamed of. 

They tried in West Virginia a fusion be- 
tween "outs" and Democrats, and now 
West Virginia holds debate in her Constitu- 
tional Convention on the question of nullify- 
ing the Constitution of the United States and 
depriving the blacks of the right to voce. 
They fried in Tennessee a movem Kit of b lit- 
ers and D .•taocra.ts, and- the result is the de- 
struction of. common schools* in which 
190,000 children were cultured.^ 

They tried the experiment in Missouri, and 
the fruit it b >re is a Democratic State gov^ 
eminent and Frank Blair in the Senate. 

In (Jl these cases one side or the other was 
cheated and the public interest washarmod, 
am) now it is proposed to attempt the same 
thing oif'a national scale. 

No wonder that leadin r D unocratic jour- 
nals and large bodies of Democrats refuse to 
be parties to such chicanery, and no wonder 
that it draws to Itself, as no otiier movement 
ever did, the very worst elements, North and 
S.).iu h. 

The issue, stands before you. On the one 
side, is safe, tried, and stable government; 
peace with all nations and prosperity at 
home, with business thriving and debt aud 
taxes melting away. 

On the other side is a hybrid conglomera- 
tion made nip of the crotchets, distempers, 
and personal aimso. resrle^s and disappointed 
men. What ills might cone of committing 
to them the affairs of the nation no judg- 
ment cau fathom-, no prophecy can foretell/r 
. The result is very safe, because it rests 
with .the sanitt generation which wis given 
by Pnwitlence to see throu i the darkness 
of the rebelliou, and that generation can not 
be blind now. 



LB S 7 \2 



1 



T^BARV OF CONGRESS 




013 789 1190 



